The fifteenth annual Ludum Dare competition, in which indie designers have 48 hours to create a game based around a particular theme, came to a close on August 30th. This year's theme was "caverns," and the entries -- all 144 of them -- have been posted at the official site, in order of assumed awesomeness.
ChevyRay's Beacon took top honors, with Matt Thorson's Broken Cave Robot coming in second. Beacon's not bad (albeit really slow going at the start), but Broken Cave Robot takes the cake, as far as I'm concerned.
It's a pretty typical Metroidvania, except the game world is much, much smaller, you only have five minutes to complete it, and you have to draw your own map to navigate it. You'll die or run out of time with alarming frequency, but since the map you've drawn stays around no matter what, you still get a sense of definite progress. That said, I'm too lousy at cartography to actually beat the damn thing.
Still. Nearly a hundred and fifty neato indie games fueled by a hectic deadline and a vague theme. Worth checking out, in my opinion.
Contest:
7:20 PM on 09.18.2009 | 
The one thing that bothered me were the pseudo-poetic little messages that came up whenever I died. "Fallen in my grave of blackness?" Seriously? The twist at the end makes me think that maybe they were meant to be cliche, but I really don't know.
I tried Broken Cave Robot but I really couldn't get into it. I love the concept of having to draw the map yourself, and maybe one afternoon when I have the time and patience I'll give it a more serious try, but I'm too sleepy at the moment to bother.
There are certain parts, once the beacon starts going off on its own, where you have to wait for the beacon to come and guide you through dark gaps like the one you are mentioning. Maybe you already knew that and it's still giving you a hard time, god knows it took me forever to beat the last stage.